News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Eclipse viewing at 30k feet: Delta to offer path-of-total... by hunter2_ on Thursday February 22, 2024 @08:42AM (#39466909)
If you look at a map of the "path of totality" for a total solar eclipse, think of it as a series of small time windows only a few minutes long, where one window ends another begins. I say that as if it's discrete, but really it's continuous and overlapping. Anyway, totality will begin in Texas at 1:27 PM CT and end in Maine at 3:35 PM ET, which is a little more than an hour. So theoretically you could be traveling at the same speed as the eclipse, from Texas to Maine in that hour, seeing an eclipse the whole time instead of just a few minutes!

Of course, the article makes no such claim that this is their plan. After all, planes don't go 2000 MPH. But they do go 600+ MPH, so maybe if things go perfectly you'll have 20 minutes of eclipse. Call it 10 minutes due to inability to rapidly correct for a slightly wrong departure time. Better than the 4 minutes you'd get standing still.

Re:Eclipse viewing at 30k feet: Delta to offer path-of-total... by gowld on Thursday February 22, 2024 @10:36AM (#39468641)
Totality isn't very interesting for longer periods of time, on a plane It's just dark. The transition toward and away from totality is interesting.
Re:Eclipse viewing at 30k feet: Delta to offer path-of-total... by FireBeyond on Thursday February 22, 2024 @11:29AM (#39469458)
Re:Eclipse viewing at 30k feet: Delta to offer path-of-total... by hunter2_ on Thursday February 22, 2024 @10:02PM (#39476460)
True, and the peculiar reaction of animals (brief nocturnal activity) won't be very noticeable from the air either.
Re:Eclipse viewing at 30k feet: Delta to offer path-of-total... by throwaway_13579 on Thursday February 22, 2024 @11:07AM (#39469149)
> planes don't go 2000 MPH

SR-71: hold my beer